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Abstract
Language Competence has become the most prerequisite component in college and university students’ academic success. The purpose of this study is to understand the differences in English Language proficiency levels of first-year undergraduate students admitted into engineering courses in the academic year 2018-19. A total of 108 students participated in this study from SRIT, a self-financed Engineering college, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. After the initial proficiency assessment, these students were provided a 10-week intervention using Task-based Instruction. A one group pre-test and post-test design was carried out as a research design for this study. A teacher made objective English Proficiency Assessment Test (EPAT) was designed as an instrument to examine the English language proficiency of the students. The EPAT includes components such as Grammar, Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension. This test aims to understand students’ grammatical competence, lexical competence and reading ability as a part of their English Language Proficiency. The test results were analyzed using SPSS software 22.0. The descriptive statistics and frequency distributions were calculated and based on the calculations students’ proficiency levels were categorized. After the intervention, it was observed that there was a significant difference in the group in terms of their English proficiency levels. Hence, this study strongly recommendsTask-based instruction as an effective teaching approach to teachEnglish in regular ESL classrooms.